As Democracy Now! broadcasts from the United Nations climate summit in
Marrakech, Morocco, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, Jonathan Pershing,
says no one from President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has reached out
to him to discuss U.S. climate policy. This all comes as the World
Meteorological Organization is projecting 2016 to be the warmest year on record,
and Trump has vowed to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. "Legally he
can’t, and politically it would be a disaster," says economist Jeffrey Sachs,
director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. "If Donald Trump goes in
the way that his rhetoric … ha[s] portrayed, we’re going to have a brawl in the
United States."

We feature a surprise address by Senator Bernie Sanders outside the White
House on Tuesday during a global day of action against the Dakota Access
pipeline that included demonstrations in over 300 cities. "Today we are saying
it is time for a new approach to the Native American people, not to run a
pipeline through their land," Sanders said, demanding that their sovereign
rights be honored. He also spoke about the need for politicians to protect
access to clean water, recognize that climate change is real, and support an
aggressive shift away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources.

Actions were held in hundreds of cities worldwide Tuesday to protest the $3.8
billion Dakota Access pipeline. Many protests targeted the offices of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, which has so far refused to grant Energy Transfer
Partners the final permit to drill underneath the Missouri River. This comes as
a joint statement by the Army and the Interior Department announced they had
"determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of
the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossessions of lands." Meanwhile, the
company wants the court to order that Energy Transfer Partners already has the
right to build the Dakota Access pipeline without any further actions or permits
from the Army Corps of Engineers. We get response from Tara Houska, national
campaigns director for Honor the Earth, who helped organize the call for
Tuesday’s day of action.

In an update on police treatment of activists at the Standing Rock standoff,
Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth, describes how she
was "arrested for criminal trespass as I was leaving a peaceful demonstration
and getting into my car on a public road." She says police handcuffed her with
zip ties and held her in a dog kennel for six hours without charging her with a
crime. "After that, I was strip-searched and then thrown into jail and, finally,
late, late that evening, was charged with a crime."

We discuss the negative impact oil pipelines have on water and the climate
with Regional Chief Kevin Hart of the Assembly of First Nations, Manitoba, who
is attending the United Nations climate summit in Marrakech. "You can see that
north of the border, in Canada, that First Nations people, indigenous people, as
well as peoples from all walks of life, color and creed, are having great
concerns when it comes to the future of pipeline development, not only in
Canada, but the United States."